Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Get a clue

Bottom feeder Lizzie Grubman, (she's the pr agent who backed over people in her car as she called them "white trash" in the Hamptons) brings some dude into a store whom she has to dress for some sycophantic event and asks the guy behind the counter, "what's cool?"
When I was living in Los Angeles one of my jobs was at a club as a doorman. It was not one of those Sunset Strip type clubs with Armenian Guido's and Stipperella wanna-be's. It was more low key(ish) except for when I had to turn away people because of overcrowding. Man, people are so persistent, and it doesn't help when you have someone like me who caves pretty easily.
When I was first offered the job, I sort questioned the owner's judgment. I'm 5'8", and at the time I was slightly less then a medium build. Hardly imposing is what I felt, yet he assured me of the clientele and that I was just basically a money taker.
My next problem came in the form of my wardrobe. I have to admit that I care about how I am perceived by others, although if you ask me what the hostess at the restaurant I ate in tonight was wearing I'd be hard pressed to tell you; but she was pretty. Yet, I always feel that I will be making these branded impressions on people if I do not put some effort into it. At least give as best I could.
I'm a jeans, t-shirt type of guy. In fact, that's all I basically own. I was and always am in the position of not having enough disposable income for clothes shopping. I use to be a lay-away type of guy. I went shopping at a few stores down Melrose and I saw some cool stuff, but as I would be working the door 3 or 4 nights a week, I would have to mix it up a bit. One killer shirt for 65 clams times 8 is serious bucks.
I turned onto Fairfax and I stumbled across a place called "Out of the Closet." It's a thrift store that gives all of it's profits to an AIDS organization. People donate all the stuff that is in there. Since the neighboring areas are West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, it is a possibility to score.
And score I did people. Every single night people would go out of their way to compliment my shirts or weather permitting, jackets. I mean, sometimes I see people looking good, but I would probably say that MAYBE once in my life, I have asked someone where that got that certain article of clothing. It wasn't only girls who were the complimenters either. I worked with a lot of comedians on stand up night, and let me tell you, comedians are really miserable lushes despite their chucle-y demeanor on stage. And for me to get compliments from that ilk, well let me tell you, that was big time. Pretty soon I was hitting all the Out of the Closets in the surrounding 25 miles. I soon built up quite a wardrobe. It's funny when people ask you where'd you get that shirt, I so much wanted to say, "I paid 3 dollars for it @ Out of the Closet" but instead I would say that I had it for a while. A lot of the clothing were name brands, so I would look like more of a prick if I said I got it at the Versace department at Neiman Marcus. People would say to me, "Ah, your wearing my favorite shirt" or "If you ever wanna trade that shirt for something..."